Teledesic President Russell Daggatt is now pegging the price tag of the massive ``Internet in the Sky'' satellite constellation at $11 billion, including financing costs. That's above the $9-billion cost advertised last year and a bit closer to the $15 billion Boeing engineers had privately estimated the system would cost. Teledesic dumped Boeing as its prime contractor last year and switched to Motorola, which is pitching a modified design (AW&ST Jan. 4, p. 29).
Embraer within 4 months plans to launch a $750-million, 36-month program to develop, certificate and produce a 70-passenger regional jet, with a 90-seat stretch version, intended to compete with Bombardier's Canadair Regional Jet 700. ``We're in the game,'' said Mauricio Botelho, president and chief executive of the Brazilian manufacturer, while acknowledging that Embraer is late in getting into that game. Canadair launched the CRJ 700 2 years ago and holds 96 firm orders.
Pentagon officials responsible for testing weapons are concerned about the effectiveness of the Air Force's YAL-1A Airborne Laser (ABL) even though a new program plan is supposed to allow more development before flight testing.
Could congressional criticism of airlines' treatment of passengers end up helping the carriers? The issue is hot on the Hill, and likely to remain so. House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster (R-Pa.) introduced a ``passenger's bill of rights'' last week. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered a similar bill on Feb. 5. Airlines view the bills as utterly impractical, citing their calls for carriers to give passengers 48 hr.
Mark A. Kissman has been named chief financial officer of Spacehab Inc., Vienna, Va. He succeeds Margaret Grayson, who has resigned. Kissman was vice president/CFO of Giesecke and Devrient America.
Richard P. Magurno has been named to the board of directors of CCAir Inc., Charlotte, N.C. He is a partner in the New York law firm of Lord Day and Lord and was general counsel of Eastern Airlines and Trans World Airlines.
A simulated ballistic missile attack on the U.S. was thwarted by a computer-modeled National Missile Defense (NMD) system during a demonstration of Wargame 2000 at the Joint National Test Facility here.
The FAA, Air Line Pilots Assn. and the Air Transport Assn. have agreed to implement a new set of procedures next month aimed at reducing risks associated with Simultaneous Operations at Intersecting Runways (SOIR). Representatives hammered out the agreement in advance of a Feb. 19 deadline set by the Air Line Pilots Assn. (ALPA). In 1998, the FAA renamed SOIR Land and Hold Short Operations (LAHSO). If a resolution had not been reached, ALPA planned to recommend that its members refuse LAHSO directives issued by air traffic control.
Republicans say the Administration's proposed defense increases for next year and beyond are more apparent than real, hinging on assumed savings, reprogrammed funds, accounting gimmicks, rosy economic assumptions and iffy Social Security reforms.
In a market as volatile as this one, earnings disappointments don't sit well with investors. Such a shortfall--versus more fundamental problems--might explain the unusually sharp drop in Orbital Sciences Corp.'s stock price last Wednesday. It tumbled 3 1/8, to 27, far below its 52-week high of 50.
Scientists are setting the stage for a microsatellite program to deliver small payloads to Mars, Venus, Mercury, small bodies and possibly even the outer planets at frequent intervals and relatively low cost.
Threats posed by biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD), as well as conventional terrorism, certainly warrant the $10 billion for countermeasures the Administration is seeking for next year, security experts say. But they caution that the Administration's effort does not go far enough and that, although interagency coordination has improved, it still is not clear who in the federal government would be in operational control in the event of a WMD assault on American soil.
A year after a flawed launch, Japan's National Space Development Agency has terminated operations of its Comets tracking and data relay satellite. The 45.2-billion-yen ($376-million) spacecraft, built by NEC, was the most advanced communications and broadcast research satellite ever built in Japan, and the program's loss has been cited by outsiders in a call for NASDA program management reform (AW&ST Feb. 8, p. 65). An incomplete second-stage burn of an H-2 launch vehicle kept Comets from reaching a geostationary transfer orbit.
The nearly 2-year primary mapping mission of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft is expected to begin early next month with successful completion of the program's aerobraking phase. Aerobraking ceased with firing of the main engine on Feb. 4 to raise the spacecraft completely out of the Martian atmosphere. Intended as a means of reducing propellant requirements, aerobraking used drag as the spacecraft passed through the upper reaches of the planet's atmosphere to change the original 45-hr.
A Phantom Works-developed flywheel aimed at improving ground-based power supplies is levitated using a combination of conventional magnets, located in a composite flywheel disk, and Boeing-grown, high-temperature, superconducting crystals arranged in a ring-shape pattern in the cryogenic housing.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates at least 16 countries have active chemical weapons programs, and perhaps a dozen are pursuing offensive biological arms. At a recent U.S. Senate hearing, CIA director George J. Tenet addressed the terrorism threat they pose. Excerpts from his testimony follow:
The Joint Strike Fighter's stealth signature--the minuscule amount of energy reflected back to an enemy radar receiver--will be about the same as that of earlier generations of low-observable aircraft such as the F-117, B-2 and F-22, but with a notable difference. It will be on the order of 10 times easier and cheaper to maintain JSF's stealth signature in the field than on those earlier radar-evading aircraft, said Air Force and aerospace industry officials attending the Air Force Assn.'s annual Air War Symposium here.
Racal Avionics Ltd. has been selected to supply versions of its control display and navigation unit to GKN Westland Helicopters for EH-101 helicopters and to British Aerospace for the Nimrod MRA 4 aircraft. The new business is worth 5 million pounds ($8.3 million).
The General Aviation Manufacturers Assn. has reported record deliveries and billings for 1998 of 2,223 new aircraft worth $5.9 billion, compared with 1,569 aircraft worth $4.7 billion for 1997. The 1998 billings were the highest in GAMA's history, and the number of shipments was the highest since 1984, association President Edward Bolen said.
Senior Pentagon officials say Saddam Hussein wants desperately for his military to shoot down even a single U.S. aircraft to counter growing evidence that Iraq's air force is powerless and the nation's air defenses are being pounded into impotency.
Malaysia Airlines (MAS) has been reluctant to join an alliance block, instead forging code-shares on a route-by-route basis. The airline's signing of a far-reaching marketing alliance with Northwest Airlines goes further than code-sharing. The two carriers propose a range of initiatives including frequent-flier link-ups and code-shares. The arrangement is similar to one with Northwest's partner, KLM, and suggests that MAS will have a role as a Southeast Asia representative in any global alliance that may be formed by KLM and Northwest.
Four Loral Globalstar spacecraft were launched successfully on Feb. 8 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on board a Russian Starsem Soyuz booster, placing the communications project on the road to recovery from the loss of 12 Globalstars on board a Ukrainian/Russian Zenit booster last Sept. 10. Loral moved quickly to drop the Zenit and book multiple future launches on both the Soyuz and Boeing Delta after the failure (AW&ST Sept. 14, 1998, p. 60).
General Electric Engine Services Div. has won a $10.9-million contract to repair 282,452 (best estimated quantity) low-pressure turbine blades on TF39 engines installed on U.S. Air Force C-5 transport aircraft.
Jean-Paul Lepeytre has been appointed chairman/CEO of Syseca, a Thomson-CSF affiliate. He was CEO of Sextant Avionique. He succeeds Christian Mons, who has been named managing director of the Thomson-CSF Concessions and Outsourcing Business Development Div.
